FRONTIERS OF ZOOLOGYDale A. Drinnon has been a researcher in the field of Cryptozoology for the past 30+ years and has corresponded with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. He has a degree in Anthropology from Indiana University and is a freelance artist and writer. Motto: "I would rather be right and entirely alone than wrong in the company with all the rest of the world"--Ambroise Pare', "the father of modern surgery", in his refutation of fake unicorn horns.

Friday, 28 October 2011

Since part of the initial presentation about Water Horses specified that in North America at least, several stories about them specified they had red horns (or antlers) and I then made a point that it would mean the time after the velvet had come off and the antlers were actually bloody, I went and got an illustration of a Bull Moose when the antlers were in just such a state.

Thursday, 27 October 2011

While I was on the same photosearch that turned up the "Little Jade Yeti" earlier, I also turned up a common type of unidentified jade artefact from the same cultutre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_dragon

A pig dragon or zhulong (Chinese 猪龍) is a type of jade artifact from neolithicChina. Zhulong are zoomorphic forms with a pig-like head and elongated limbless body coiled around to the head and described as "suggestively fetal". [1] Early pig dragons are thick and stubby; later examples have more graceful, snakelike bodies.
Pig dragons were produced by the Hongshan culture, and often featured as grave goods.[2] For example see [1]. Pig bones have been found interred alongside humans at Hongshan burial sites, suggesting that the animal had some ritual significance.
There is some speculation that the pig dragon is the first representation of the Chinese dragon. The character for "dragon" in the earliest Chinese writing has a similar coiled form, as do later jade dragon amulets from the Shang period.[3]

Some Commentators have remarked that the most obvious forerunner for the Pig-Dragon is the foetal pig, something which would be a well-known object in a pig-slaughtering society, and probably with some superstitious import.

A Shang Dynasty Closed Pig-Dragon loop, with continuous backfin.

The more fully developed "C-Dragon" is more common later and I have previously compared the design to the Celtic Horse-eels. I am not really certain of that because there is a flip up at the base of the mane which could easily indicate where a Longneck's foreflipper would be. However, I prefer to deal with Longnecked-WaterMonster-Oriental Dragons separately (there is another blog following this one to deal with the subject)

However, other jade objects from the same culture and showing a similar creature in a different posture tell a different story. The stumpy-ended, big-headed Pig Dragons turn out to correspond to a legendary creature known throught the Orient as a Water Pig, and which is more than likely a kind of seal. Some of the water-monsters still being reported in Northern China are apparently seals, and there are comparable land-locked freshwater seals in bothnearby Siberia and Central Asia, and in Alaska as well.. This small jade for sale on ebay is not only seal-shaped but also seems to even have whiskers on its snout.

Seals and sea lions are infrequently seen off of Japan and China and described in the same tone as if they were legendary monsters (Yokai). This is from the Pink Tentacle site:

at three meters (9-10 feet) long, this could be a very large medium-sized seal or a subadult elephant seal. I think Elephant seal is more likely because of the very long belly area: the foreflippers would not be correct in any seal and I presume they are drawn that long to emphasize that they are dangerous. The size and the shape of the head depicted makes me think it was a female (like the ones here and below)Elephant seals from California do occasionally wind up on the shores of Japan, on the opposite side of the Pacific ocean. there are also the rare reports of the 3-toed monster tracks on Japanese beaches but these are generally thought to have been hoaxes.

Elephant seal showing trackway: at extreme magnification, the foreflipper tracks can be seen to look as if they were 3-toed. This is just as general information since there are no really good allegations of 3-toed "Monster" tracks found off of Japan. When the sand is packed very hard, the body drag marks in the center tend to disappear.

More to the point, the first (later) Chinese jade Zhoulong from Wikipedia has also been compared to the Makara of Southern India and Indonesia, and there are also the occasional reports of seals as "Water Pigs" in the Indian Ocean far from the more arctic realms where they would be more usually expected.

﻿
At the Frontiers of Zoology Yahoo group we are aware of very rare sightings and captures of (Harbour) seals in Vietnam and Hong Kong(We also have photos of the same). Ivan Sanderson spoke of an as-yet-unclassified species on Monk Seal that inhabited the Indian Ocean, in particular the Maldive and Lacadive islands and the South of India. It seems these were also called Water Pigs or Water Boars.Literature on any of these things is very sparse and no sources other than Sanderson even seem aware there was supposed to be such a thing as a seal native to the Indian Ocean.﻿

Chinese Makara

﻿﻿

Makara Head From Java

﻿
However, comparing artwork from Southern India and Indonesia to photographs of the living animal, it is fairly easy to believe that the stories of Makaras were originally inspired by sightings of Antarctic elephant seals strayed far to the North of their usual territories.﻿

All of these items are really made out of the mineral nephrite which is the commoner type of stone called jade. I have been told that many of the jade items coming out of China and on to the open market are fakes: but if that is the case then the image counts as a recent folk-art depiction rather than a millenia-old piece of primitive art. From the standpoint of a possible illustration of a possible Cryptid, that much makes little difference. The longer photos show front and back of the object, a ceremonial carved stone ax. It is interesting that the one side shows what looks like writing because that would be Neolithic script and one of the oldest forms of writing yet uncovered. Again, the Hongshan culture is located in North China and abuting Inner Mongolia, in an area where some teeth have been found that could be Neanderthaloid and could be recent.

Saturday, 22 October 2011

Tyler Stone sent me an update on his Freshwater-monkey theory to account for Kappas and similar Cryptids. I said this was good material and I would run it for him here:

The first thing I want to share is an update to my freshwater monkey theory. After doing some reading, I realized that the Honey Island Swamp monster would be a perfect fit. Here's a description of the 1963 sighting by Harlan Ford and Billy Mills from http://jmichaelms.tripod.com/HIS/. I've highlighted the parts that I think are of special interest.

1.Appearances:A. Long hair on the head. Shorter hair all over the body. Head hair forming bangs somewhat over the eyes. Hair color is dingy gray.B. When Harlan Ford first saw it, it was on all fours, facing away from him. He said that it reminded him of an African lion from the rear.C. When the creature heard the voices of Harlan and his companion, it turned and stood upright on two legs , and made eye contact with the two men. The two men and the creature stood staring at each other as if sizing up the situation.D. The most outstanding thing the two men remember the most, was the size of the creature's eyes. He said they were disproportionally large, compared to the head and they were of an amber color. E. He said that the face looked like something out of a horror movie. It had a sinister look.F. Harlan described it as being about seven feet tall. It's loins were slender and it's chest and shoulders were tremendous.G. Harlan and Billy Mills, on another occasion found a series of three wild boars that were killed by bites to the throat. The first two were a good ways away from water, and had been dead a day or two. The third was lying in the water, with warm blood coming from it's throat and the hog was still kicking. Around the dying hog were the distinctive tracks of the creature.H. According to Perry Ford the creature makes a sound like a screech owl, except with more bass, and much more strength.I. According to Perry Ford, dogs will pick up the scent and run the creature. The creature circled his camp for many hours one night and had squalled for a while. Towards daylight a pack of dogs picked up the scent and made their way to his camp and circled it many times before making their way on out through the woods.M. According to Denny Crawford, a local with some knowledge of the creature, he knew a man who had lived in the swamp pretty deep and the man said that he believed that the animal migrated in and out of the area as it seemed to be more common at certain times of the year and gone at other times.N. Scientists, who examined the tracks, all agreed they were not hoaxes. The webbed toe imprints appeared to be a cross between a Primate and a large alligator... an impossible mixture. The scientists estimated the creature's weight at about four hundred pounds.O. When Harlan and Billy first encountered the creature and it ran, they got the impression that it would go down on all fours again any moment. As it disappeared into the brush they saw it appear to go down on all fours again.P. They, at that time, gave chase into an island or isthmus with only one way in and they could not locate it. They circled the island and could not find tracks going into the water.

Conclusions: This creature seems to possess both primate and feline characteristics. It seems to have chosen the trees as opposed to the water when pursued. It killed by biting the throat, but did not immediately eat its prey. Dogs will pursue this animal.

Comments:

A. The long "mane" with short body hair sounds very similar to that in some male macaques.

B. Macaques often move on all fours in the way described. The description of the creature as being like a lion reinforces the idea of a long "mane" of head hair with short body hair.

C. Macaques are capable of walking on two legs, as proven by this monkey from an Israeli zoo:

D. The description of amber eyes is extremely interesting. Most images I can find show macaques with similarly-colored eyes.

E. The "sinister look" may be a threat on the part of the macaque; many primates use eye-contact as a challenge (gorillas are rather well-known for this).

H. The "sound like a screech owl, except with more bass" basically brings to mind a very low-pitched monkey call:

O: The fact that the creature apparently walked awkwardly on two legs before dropping to all fours brings to mind an animal which CAN walk upright, but is more comfortable on all-fours.

Also, the note in the conclusion about the creature moving through the trees is interesting; if this is indeed what happened, then it sounds like the creature is arboreal, at least to some extent.

My reading of the Honey Island Swamp Monster case is that what we are basically dealing with is a large male macaque-type monkey, which would fit in to the general category of amphibious freshwater monkeys.

Best regards,

Tyler Stone

-I also pointed out to Tyler that I had mentioned independantly that the "Water Sprites" of Europe also corresponded to his description. He said he had noticed I had said that and he thought it was interesting.

Thursday, 20 October 2011

This news story has been continuing for the last several days until it is coming to a grisly ending for all of the poor captive exotic animals involved. My point here is not to say that this is a disaster for all of the species involved as far as preserving genertic variation goes, but to point out that this scenario is a bona fide example of a person who had a hobby of importing exotic animals and who ened up by intending to release all his animals into the wilderness, without public notification and of course quite illegally. When we have such examples as this going on, there really is no good reason for saying reported exotic animals could not have been brought into the country and released secretly, which is a mantra repeated constantly by some persons that collect such reports as "Black Panthers", "Surrey Pumas", "Australian Big Cats" , "Errant Crocodylians", "Displaced Pythons" and call such reports Cryptozoological. The collectors of such reports frequently insist that such creatures which are otherwise species known to exist currently in other parts of the worldmust be Cryptozoological mostly on the assumption that other researchers have always said that these creatures were so.
There is no "Must Be" to it. If ANY Animal is a KNOWN species then it is NOT an unknown species and hence it is not a subject fit for Cryptozoological study: It is NOT a CRYPTID.

﻿ Best Wishes, Dale D.
﻿
﻿

A sign warning motorists that exotic animals are on the loose rests on I-70 Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, near Zanesville, Ohio

﻿ ﻿ ﻿
﻿
﻿

The Ones That Didn't get Away. Sheriff's deputies shot 48 animals , including 18 rare Bengal tigers and 17 lions, after Terry Thompson, owner of the private Muskingum County Animal Farm near Zanesville, threw their cages open Tuesday and then committed suicide. Thompson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound

﻿ ﻿
﻿
﻿

Investigators walk around a barn as carcasses lay on the ground at The Muskingum County Animal Farm Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011, in Zanesville, Ohio.

﻿ ﻿

Exotic animal escape in Ohio

Amid expressions of horror and revulsion at the killing of dozens of wild animals in Ohio — and photographs of their bloody carcasses — animal rights advocates agreed there was little local authorities could have done to save the dangerous creatures once they began roaming the countryside after their owner released them before taking his own life. (AP)

Three Animals Still Running Free in Zanesville, Ohio: Town Under Lockdown

A grizzly bear, mountain lion and a monkey are still on the loose in Ohio after authorities hunted down as many as 51 ferocious animals who were set free by the owner of an animal preserve before killing himself.

Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz told reporters he can't be 100 percent sure that those three animals are the only ones unaccounted for.

Lutz and ABC News' wildlife expert Jack Hanna, who will take the living animals at the preserve to the Columbus Zoo, urged the public to remain cautious.

"If you see these animals you do not run," said Hanna, who added he is most concerned about the mountain lion, since those animals have "great leaping ability."

The sheriff said that when his men arrived at the animal preserve in Zanesville, they found bears, lions, Bengal tigers, black bears, leopards roaming the area. Since it was about to get dark, he feared the animals would escape into the night.

He said his deputies had to kill animals at close range with their sidearms. One animal that got away was hit by a car on a highway some distance away, he said.

The animals' cages were opened up by Terry Thompson, who owned an animal preserve in Zanesville. Thompson killed himself after freeing his menagerie, Lutz said.

Hanna and his vets visited the farm today, calling conditions deplorable. He plans to take all five living animals to the Columbus Zoo.
The man who is believed to have set the animals free, Thompson, 61, was recently released from prison after serving one year on federal weapons charges. According to investigators he has been cited in the past for animal abuse and neglect.

Lutz said at a news conference that residents should stay inside until the animals, which escaped around 6 p.m. Tuesday, are rounded up. Several schools across the area have cancelled classes for Wednesday.

Police, who have been ordered to shoot to kill, describe the loose animals as "mature, very big and aggressive."

Lutz said that several aggressive animals were shot by deputies when they were discovered near Thompson's body at his preserve. Thompson's preserve was surrounded by a fence, and not all animals on the property fled through the open gates.

"These are wild animals, wild animals that you would see on TV in Africa," Lutz said at a news conference Tuesday evening.

Last night, as many as 51 wild animals, including cheetahs, grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, lions, a white Siberian tiger, camels and giraffes were running free in Zanesville, which has a population of about 25,000 residents. Police said that orangutans and chimps were found in Thompson's home, but they were still in their cages.
"This is a bad situation," Mutz said. "It's been a bad situation for a long time and the last thing we want to do is have any of our public hurt."
Deputies are working with the animals' caregiver, who says the animals were fed on Monday.
They're putting food in the animals' pens in the hopes they might return, where they can then be secured.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol has cordoned off seven square miles near Interstate 70 and officers are using infrared devices to find the animals.
On "GMA" Wednesday Hanna said that in controlling this situation human life and animal life must both be considered, as does timing of capture.
"Human life has to come first but that's what we have to look for. We have to take care of our animal life. You cannot tranquilize an animal at night. It's hard enough during the daytime," Hanna said.
Danielle White, one of Thompson's neighbors, said that she saw a loose lion in the area in 2006.
"It's always been a fear of mine knowing [the preserve's owner] had all those animals," she said. "I have kids. I've heard a male lion roar all night."

Thompson has been warned repeatedly over the last decade to get his animals under control – and no less than 30 times in the past year. He was arrested in April of 2005 for cruelty and torture of cattle and bison he had on his property, according to the website pet-abuse.com. He was charged with one count of having an animal at large, two counts of rendering animal waste and one count of cruelty to animals.

While I was doing research towards the recent postings at the Frontiers of Zoology and more specifically into the Early Neolithic of East Asia, I came across this curious scene depictyed on a rock face in Korea. The scene depicts some whales apparantly beached or hauled ashore and being flensed. Among them are several depictions of longnecked creatures similar to some of the Long-Necked "Bunyips" depicted in Australian Rock Art, and some of these depictions resemble supposedly-extinct Plesiosaurs.

In this section to the upper left of the original are several creatures which look to be perhaps very large turtles. In sea turtles however the foreflippers are very large and the rear ones small: in these the flippers all look to be the same length. Moreover the one in the rear of their line, the fourth one in the cluster and overlapping the figure in lighter green, is facing down the other direction with a longer neck and a more distinctive head. It seema like a perspective shot with the forequarters well defined and the rear end indistinct: there is a faint indiucations of rear flippers but not the tail (which would be hidden by the body if this were a natural view). Because that one looks more distinctly like a Plesiosaur, I am willing to say that the others in that cluster are likewise.

In this section toward the middle of the whole, there are a couple of longnecked creatures at the topo, a human figure directly in front of the creature on top, and a ship further off to the right. The tail is not shown on the creature at the top, but its arched neck is thicker and it seems to have a horselike head and a mane. I am willing to say this is a "Merhorse" and the pair is meant to be a "Caddy and Amy" couple. There are two large creatures (?"Wasco" Sea Wolves) below them and off to the right of these two, another depiction of what could be a more distinctively Plesiosaur-shaped creature facing the other way. At the bottom there are also, interestingly, a kneeling anthropomorphic bear and a "Plucked chicken" Thunderbird to the right of a whale To the right again of the "Pluckled Chicken" is another version of the Plesiosauian creature as a "Waterhorse" with a bulky ovoid body and four flippers: it is not certain if it is meant to have a tail because there is another (smaller) whale directly behind it where its tail would be, lying crosswise to the body axis of the other creature.

To the far left at the top of the rock face is this other section which also seems to indicate a very long-necked "Waterhorse" only this one more definitely has little or no tail. Directly above it is a long, low-slung creature which may be intended to show a "Waterhorse" swimming at length and showing a row of humps at the surface. This is more problematic. Below them there seem to be some more "Sea-Wolves" and one creature with an exceptionally long tail.

And finally we come to this section at the far left, lower row, which seems to show a crocodile or alligator-like creature (in blue) and several large "Sea Snakes (Some of which are possibly eels) In this section, the most distinctively Plesiosaurian-looking creature is circled in red and it has its neck curled around so that its head faces back, the head end closest to where two whales almost meet nose-to-nose (at right angles to one another) There are some more possible human figures in this section as well.

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

I came across this early Chinese jade while doing a photosearch for something else, and the catalogue description of this object says that it represents a bird. It is stylized and simplified enogh to make identification uncertain, but it gives me more of the impression of a broad-shouldered, gorilla-like creature with a shelf-like browridge and slit-like lips. It might be shown with large round eyes but outsized eyes are sometimes described on Bigfoot by some of the witnesses. furthermore, it has two round discs on its chest that may be represent large pectoral muscles: the interpretation that this is a bird figure says that those are meant to be the bird's stylized feet. And I am not exactly certain what the artist intended, but the bottom extremities of the arms look more like fists than feathers to me.
The culture is identified as Hongshan Neolithic and the Jade was found at a site near Inner Mongolia. The Hongshan Neolithic ran from 4700 to 2900 BC and it is the same culture that produced odd semicircular stylized "Dragon" figures which I suggested could indicate a Long-Necked or possibly an Eel-like water monster. Some of the 'dragons" are called "Pig-Dragons", a sort of a local Makara, and they might be meant to depict fat seals. Some of the carvings actually do represent a large eagle-like bird, possibly a Thunderbird, but this carving does not resemble those "Thunderbird" carvings except in a general way.
The jade carvings also DO include sculpted skulls, so it is no good to say nobody was carving rock-crystal skulls thousands of years BC.http://www.friendsofjade.org/current-article/2008/4/6/from-pig-to-dragon-neolithic-hongshan-jades.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongshan_culture

My opinion is that that this jade depicts a Chinese "Wildman" and possibly the same creature that Ivan Sanderson called a "Gin-Sing" (Jen-Hsiung). There are other jade carvings I had seen in illustrations which also have that overall "Gorilla" look to them, and other such examples also from Olmec Mexico.

Best Wishes, Dale D.
PS, you also DO sometimes see depictions of ordinary monkeys with enormous saucer-eyes in later Chinese art: in this case, it isn't so sure that was the idea.

Sunday, 16 October 2011

At the Yahoo group Georgia Bigfoot Society, we have been having an interesting exchange of messages considering the impact upon one field of bordline study that the number of borderline subjects a person advances has upon that one area. Patty was the first to advance the subject and so I'll quote her message first:

I have a question though. On the Crypto Mundo website it says bigfoot, lake monsters, sea serpents and more. How many people here who have interest in bigfoot also believe in the various lake monsters and other unknown animals. I read the other day someone here post about bigfoot and Santa Claus. As a Christian I cringe when I see people linking faith in God with belief in Santa Claus. Mainly because I believed in St Nick growing up and it didn't damage me for life. I see nothing wrong with kids believing in Santa or reading fairy tales or having invisible friends. I don't want to be the person who bursts their bubble when it comes to St Nick so there's not a good way for me to respond to posts without risking some kid reading it, sooner or later they'll learn Santa's not real but I still remember how much more fun Christmas was before I knew he wasn't real. I don't want to be the one to ruin it for them. But to me bigfoot has an established history and just seems more logical to expect than the various lake creatures people say they see, many in man made lakes that really couldn't be expected to have large sea serpent type critters swimming in them. Does anyone think it detracts from serious bigfoot research by clumping it in with sea serpents, loch ness, lake monsters, giant birds, chupacobras, giant spiders and all the other things that go bump in the night? Our lake here is man made and has been impounded since the late 1940's. It's got huge catfish in it but people claim from time to time to see someting similar to Nessie but logically it couldn't have grown in a man made lake so quickly, it couldn't have swam in from rivers that in places are only 1-2 feet deep. People will insist they saw it though. I think it's possible to logically defend one's belief in Sasquatch. I think it possible that something is in Loch Ness but lumping every unknown animal together in an all or nothing type proposition makes it hard to defend. I like to think I can intelligently defend my faith in God. It does take faith, I don't have all the answers and part of it is probably because I want there to be a God. But when I read people writing that God spoke to them and told them to do something usually stupid or something that makes them rich it's impossible to defend what they write. Some people claim to have seen angels, some of the stories seem plausible and I want badly to see one but people have written books about this running almost nightly visitation from angels who share the secrets of God with them. Some say they've been taken to Heaven, many say they've been healed or now have the power to heal others. It's really close to what people say who claim to be visited by ET's over and over. Seeing something in the night sky that one can't explain and claiming ET's have taken them to other planets and visit them weekly are totally different. Does so often having people presume belief in one thing means belief in everything bother anyone else?

Reports of outsized Catfish Water Monsters:
Most of the "Spots" are in introduced locations

And then I made my reply (October 7):
Well, I was the first guy to complain about the linking of believers in Bigfoot to belief in Santa Claus. Yep, that was pretty cringe-inducing. As far as lake monsters go, they are not all the same thing and people that even SAY they are all the same thing are being misleading from the onset. Not all sightings at Loch Ness
are the same thing, some sightings are just big fish. And all over North
America, I would say the most common sightings are big fishes, ESPECIALLY big catfishes down in our middle latitudes (up North in Canada it's sturgeons more likely.) We introduce catfish into ponds and lakes all over the place, and in
absence of competetors, some of those catfishes grow HUGE. They basically have all they could ever want to eat from scavenging, and there might also be chemical or hormonal factors due to enviromental pollution involved.Those aren't the only kind of Lake Monsters there are, but the whole problem in Lake Monsters is getting over the hurdle that all the reports refer to the same thing and it is somehow "wrong" to believe there are Water Monsters. It's not wrong to believe in big fishes, outsized otters and beavers,swimming mooses or whatever. The problem is in the prejudice and not the sightings.

Now if you are going to make a big overall theory like John Keel does, and has a
vast interdimensional conspiracy theory that is behind all UFO and Monster
sightings, all Religious experience and ghost stories, well then I've seen that
theory come into and go out of fashion and IMHO it really DOES hurt credibility
for the people that believe in it. So I can see your point in reference to that.

Everybody believes in something different and in a different number pof
different possibilities. So I don't think we have to force everybody to
necessarily believe alike and to believe in EVERYTHING all at once. Because when
you believe in EVERYTHING, people think you're just stupid and gullible.

Best Wishes, Dale D.

To Which Patty Replied (Same Day):Our lake has catfish over 6 feet long already and I'm sure they'll be largerdecades from now. Even a normal size bass slapping the water trying to catch abug sounds way bigger than they are and at night after a lake person's had a fewbeers I'm sure they grow even more. I think that's the problem with so manygroups and organizations that research sasquatch, they also are whole heartedbelievers in every critter coming and going. Believing in God and runningaround trying to see Christ or the Virgin Mary in people's lawns or the frost ontheir windows or wherever else people say is totally different I think. Lookingup at the night sky and wondering who or what's out there and thinking alienscome to my bedroom to update me on cosmic affairs are also totally different. Iknow groups have to play to the masses to be successful but serious discussionsand really off the wall nonsense are different. We listed to coast to coast butway over half the time it's utter nonsense and is just something to providebackground noise to pass the night. Some people think they've seen sasquatch,some have I'm sure but then way too many swear they've talked to them, livedamong them, killed them, even seen them being unloaded from flying saucers! Iwish serious debate no matter what the topic could be carried on withoutsilliness.To Which The Group Owner Replied:

It is my personal opinion that any catfish that is too big for my net classifies as being a MONSTER! Nuff said. Incidentally, has anybody here ever watched the series "River Monsters" on Animal Planet?

And after that came the last-posted response, from Paul on Tuesday (Oct 11):

yeess, river monsters are certainly larger than the average catch. however, the dude does go to some exotic places to make his catches. what a life, getting paid to go fishing.

[The matter of monstrous catfishes in Indiana was discussed on one of my recent podcast interviews for the Indiana chapter of the American Fortean Society. It seems we have some very big and very ugly examples in the state, according to my host, and to which I added a few reports I had heard about myself.]

To focus on the matter of Giant catfishes in particular, here is the excerpt from my "Catalogue" of unknowns that has been reprinted in the CFZ Yearbook (longer section quoted at bottom):

Giant Catfish. It is suspected in certain instances, reports of Freshwater octopuses actually refer to Giant catfishes where the whiskers are being described as tentacles. In the case of the "Oklahoma octopus" this is fairly certain because not only are the reports to areas where Giant Catfishes are otherwise reported, they are reported in similar terms, each time using the description "As big as a horse". Furthermore some descriptions of the supposed octopus specify that it has the body of a fish or shark.Giant Catfishes are also universally indicated, in both [Southern] Canada and the USA; Coleman also has information on these, published in FATE magazine. Reports of Giant catfishes in general may be nearly world-wide. In the USA several of the indicated lakes have been stocked with introduced catfishes and the assumption is usually made that the catfishes are not an unknown species, but individuals of known species which grow to enormous size. The most common form in the USA seems to be a gigantic blue catfish which can grow to 12-16 feet long and weight 300 to 500 pounds. This variety of giant catfish is frequently said to be "the size of a horse" and estimates of the length can run up to 20 feet long, although ordinarily 10-15 feet (3 to 5 meters long approx.)

A pertinent internet posting on the matter is quoted below:

A FRESHWATER MONSTER? The Oklahoma Octopus is a mysterious creature generally said to inhabit three lakes in Oklahoma (Lake Thunderbird, Lake Oolagah and Lake Tenkiller) where it attacks and kills unsuspecting swimmers. According to legend and rumor, this freshwater demon measures the size (girth) of a horse and resembles an octopus, with long tentacles and leathery, brown skin. Skeptics question how an octopus — an ocean creature — could survive in freshwater lakes, but it is easy to believe that such a creature would be a fearsome predator. The Giant Pacific Octopus, for example, has tentacles that each boast the strength of a 200-pound man and a powerful beak that it uses to kill prey.

EVIDENCE OF AN OCTOPUS? Although no physical evidence exists in the case of the Oklahoma Octopus, many point to the high mortality rate and large number of unexplained drownings in the Oklahoma lakes as a clear sign of its presence. There have also been numerous reported sightings. Cryptozoologists have pointed out that species of jellyfish have been able to adapt from saltwater to freshwater conditions, and the same adaptation may have been possible for a giant cephalopod trapped in an inland lake when coastal waters receded."Oklahoma Octopus" from Animal Planet:http://animal.discovery.com/tv/lost-tapes/oklahoma-octopus/Additional comments added by readers include :"It is also added that octopi occupy other states. The writer says that gigantic, horse sized octopi occupy Lake Tenkiller, Lake Thunderbird, and Lake Oolagah in Oklahoma of all places. He has no sources."[The sources are traditional and new native reports circulated locally but continuing the same tradition. I had heard about these reports independantly from informants in the area-DD]

And"The problem with the water chimera creatures such as the Oklahoma Octopus is that they are sometimes reported as having composite features such as a shark or fish body also, specifying that it has fins, and that sounds more like a Giant Catfish instead."

To give you some king of idea about how extensive our zoo of Freshwater Monsters is in North America, I append two catalogue lists: the first is the list of Lake Monsters as defined by location (which is not necessarily the best way to tackle the problem, some locations have more than one type) and the lower longer list includes all of the lakes with probable identifications as to the type of "Monster" involved, when such information is already on the books or can be easily inferred from the descriptions.

The "Classic sea serpent " is a special case; such sightings occur worldwide and statistically are astonishingly uniform; most "Lake Monster " reports are in this category. The reports do not show any particular geographic assortment or differentiation by hump size, as Heuvelmans maintains in his categories of "Many-humped" and "Super-otter"; they also occur in the tropics, where they are universally also referred to as aquatic serpents of unusual size. Some authors, such as Mackal, see evidence of zueglodons in these reports. Zueglodon spines are not made to undulate that way; the tail vertebrae look like long sections of pipe and the whole tail section is meant to move all in one piece. This is a mechanical stage in evolving a whalelike pattern of swimming.

The reports in this category are obviously and beyond any shade of doubt standing wave patterns such as delayed wakes made by passing boats. One of Heuvelmans' "??" reports was by a Professor Heddle, who saw a "Many -humped" effect and correctly identified it as a wave, and he is the only expert witness to have contributed such an observation in previously-published sea-serpent literature. I have seen the effect myself on the shore of New Jersey when I was affiliated with the SITU and for a brief while had hoped that it was an actual sighting. Heuvelmans notes in reports of each category separately (SO,MH,ME and LN) that the appearence of the humps are due to "waves in the wake" and this is even an important feature of the "Super-otter" category. The difference in long-humps-with-long-intervals and short-humps-with-short intervals is a function only of wavelength; several locations, such as Loch Ness and Lake Okanagan, log reports of both types.The importance of this cannot be underestimated. Of ALL Lake monster" reports, as many as over 90% are not describing real animals, they are describing waves in the water, even if an unknown animal is making the waves. It is also significant that in Heuvelmans' study In the Wake of Sea Serpents, 75% of the reports are nondeterminative even without deleting categories; deleting the wave-effect reports drives the total bite out of reports much higher.

Unidentified Huso Sturgeon This type is general across the Holarctic, especially in Siberia and Canada, but also apparantly extends down into the Northern USA., including "White Sharks" reported in the Great Lakes area during the "Jaws" craze (personal info; Eberhart includes a separate mention at Lake Simon, Quebec). This type has the type of body scutes associated with Huso, being spaced apart instead of continuous along the sides. The Lake Ilamna creatures are rather typical. These sturgon incidentally are both saltwater and freshwater inhabitants.Giant Sturgeon or Great White Sturgeon. Like a white sturgeon or a Russian giant sturgeon (Huso) commonly reported as being 20 to 40 feet long, most often 30 feet long or less, but also at double those lengths and as much as a hundred feet long with exaggeration. Basically fish-shaped with sharklike fins, large widely-spaced scutes along the back and sides that are directly identified as being like a very large sturgeon. Sometimes turn up on sonar fish-finders moving around at depths, at which time they can again be reported as up to 60 feet long, but doubtless much smaller ordinarily. Head is flattened with a bluntly pointed snout, compared to the shape of a shark's head, but the barbels under the snout are also distinctly noted, sometimes reported as overhanging fangs in front of the mouth. Color is ordinarily greyish on the back with a white belly, but the color may also be tinted with brown or green depending on the individual and on lighting conditions. The skin other than the big armor scutes is reported as smooth, and the head is also singled out as being armored. They are fish-feeders and are sometimes known to jump out of the water, on occasion giving the appearance of a long neck 10 to 20 feet long (3 to 7 meters long approx.) In Asia, sometimes reported as "Giant Salmon" or "Giant Paddlefish"

Giant Salmon are reported in the Kenai river in Alaska, being the size of dolphins; this information comes from Pastor Ron Stevens of the Southeasten Holiness Church in Indianapolis (personal info, a FOAF report) Similar creatures living in Eastern Asia are the Taimen or Giant Trout: these are large salmonids that spend their entire lives in fresh water. It has been suggested that the Kenai river dolphin-sized salmon are really Alaskan Taimen (Hucho not Huso)

Giant Catfish. It is suspected in certain instances, reports of Freshwater octopuses actually refer to Giant catfishes where the whiskers are being described as tentacles. In the case of the "Oklahoma octopus" this is fairly certain because not only are the reports to areas where Giant Catfishes are otherwise reported, they are reported in similar terms, each time using the description "As big as a horse". Furthermore some descriptions of the supposed octopus specify that it has the body of a fish or shark.Giant Catfishes are also universally indicated, in both Canada and the USA; Coleman also has information on these, published in FATE magazine. reports of Giant catfishes in general may be nearly world-wide. In the USA several of the indicated lakes have been stocked with introduced catfishes and the assumption is usually made that the catfishes are not an unknown species, but individuals of known species which grow to enormous size. The most common form in the USA seems to be a gigantic blue catfish which can grow to 12-16 feet long and weight 300 to 500 pounds. This variety of giant catfish is frequently said to be "the size of a horse" and estimates of the length can run up to 20 feet long, although ordinarily 10-15 feet (3 to 5 meters long approx.)

Giant Pike These fishes are like larger editions of the well-known great northern pike or Muskellunge, but whereas those fishes are usually thought to grow no larger than about six or seven feet long, the giant versions are reported as being twelve to fourteen. The shape of the heads can strike witnesses as being snakelike or horselike, but photographs and witness' sketches show the typical pike sort of head at larger size and with the usual markings. Color is usually a yellowish brown or olive with darker brown spots or streaks, and often stated to be coloration as typical of a pike by witnesses or collectors of the reports.Giant pikes in Eurasia are supported by old records of 15-20 feet long, including in the Guiness Book of World Records; some "Lindorms" and other water monsters are also apparently large pikes.Giant pikes are also indicated in water monster reports in the USA, especially in the Great Lakes region, but Giant garfishes are also possible; such reports from the Western US could be accidental introductions. Information on both sets of reports are in Eberhart.

Alligator Gar-The original Lake Monster report made by Champlain at Lake Champlain was a type of gar, but the dimensions which he gave were much too large for the ordinary longnosed gar and more in the size range of the alligator gar. Alligator gars are widely exported by sports fishermen because they are fierce fighters and very tenacious of life , and specimens have turned up in Hong Kong and in Central Asia. Most if not all of these introductions go unrecorded and would be strictly Illegal: but I had thought for some time that the Walker Lake "Serpent" at least was an artificially-introduced alligator gar and other reports of the type turn up on the East Coast of the USA, including especially in the Carolinas. Alligator gars have also been reported in Lake Nicaragua, where they are evidently responsible for some reported "Monster" activity.

Giant Eels: Heuvelmans' "Super-eel " was a dustbin category but did contain good reports of evidently local, well-defined forms of outsized eels. The specific categories included a giant conger about 20 feet long seen off of Singapore (Heuvelmans indicates Charles Gould as a source and multiple local sightings) and a much larger form with fins at the side of the head like a titanic conger with a characteristic dark top and light bottom (unlike the smaller forms). In the 1970's, I statistically separated the category and called the larger well-defined form Titanoconger and the smaller conger-like form Megaconger; the two apparantly are also different in habitat and coloration.

When he was advancing the theory that the Loch Ness monster was a giant eel, Maurice Burton noted several reports of river monsters that were like giant eels in Britain and on the continent, seemingly France and Germany.. Sometimes, these were reported with doglike heads and serpentine bodies. no individual reports and no further details were given. These might be the same as similar reports from Scotland, Ireland and possibly Scandinavia, but these are mostly in the small "Monster" size range, 10 to 20 feet long. Similar "eel" reports in a similar size range are mentioned as coming from Eastern Canada., including a report by a diver in Lake Memphremagog, but also several reports from Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and possibly ascending up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario. James Sweeny was told by a member of Loch Ness investigation of a purported freshwater giant eel skeleton 40 feet long found in a lake in Uruguay. There is as so far no direct connection between saltwater and freshwater reported forms of giant eels. The freshwater reports are however consistent with the "Megaconger" category. Giant FW Eel in NA is Said to be from 10 to 30 feet long, sometimes perhaps as much as 50 feet long but this is doubtless a mistake. Reported as distinctly eel-like and of the general conformation like a large conger eel with two pectoral fins noted behind the head. Face is very much like a conger eel when seen distinctly. Long continuous fin runs along the back and on both sides of the tail, above and below joined at the tip, suggestion that the back fin is sometimes called a "Mane". Color is brown, darker on the back than on the belly, but not a great contrast in the colors above and below. Color may be darker and reported as black: sometimes the belly is described as a dirty yellowish. Not seen very far inland and when inland is only on major rivers like the St. Lawrence: also not seen in the Southern US or the Gulf of Mexico, but other types of Giant Eels are reported there. These are not seen in freshwater locations. It is possible that such eels are reported in Alaska but more definitely that they are reported in far NE Siberia.

Mystery Salamander (Andias, often called Megalobatrachus)Giant salamanders of this type are separable from general water monster reports and are basically holarctic in distrabution. Reports extend from the British Isles, Northern Germany and Central Europe all across Eurasia in spotty distrabution to Siberia, where Richard Freeman tells me such creatures are called Paymurs: they are also found in Canada and parts of Alaska, and then on the the midlands of the USA and even to the Central Atlantic states. These are sometimes called "giant water lizards", sometimes "alligators", and sometimes are described as having horns or catfish barbels. The eastern USA seems to have a pink form, of which an example seems to have inhabited a pond on Ivan Sanderson's property at one point. They are sometimes reported with distinct "annulations" or costal grooves giving rise to such names as "wurms" or "wurrums", and they also can inhabit much smaller bodies of water and can be even more evanescent than other kinds of Lake Monsters. These salamanders and the Huso sturgeons have skeletons that are largely cartiliginous and thus bodies are said to "melt entirely away" without leaving traces. These are almost universally stated to be no larger than 6 to 9 feet long, but some reports make them out to be much larger. Giant Salamanders are reported as "Northern Alligators" and recognized to be the same as Chinese and Japanese Giant Salamanders when they appear in California: some of them apparently have catfish whiskers (barbels) reported as "Horns" and some of them are a bright pink, on the East Coast especially. Ordinarily not so large, 3 to 6 or 7 feet long (1 to 2 meters), although some reports make them out to be larger, up to 15-16 feet (5 meters). Ordinarily fish-eaters that stay underwater although some are stated to come out amphibiously onto land. Capable of breathing air or water .Usually a dark brown or black with a paler underbelly, but the sides may also show a speckled appearance, sometimes pink-and-black like a gila monster. It is asumed that this is a warning coloration and that the salamanders prodouce a toxin in the skin.

Remnant Steller's Seacows:Recent reports of "Manatees" have come from the Long Beach area of Washington state, and Heuvelmans mentions one such report from British Columbia but assumes that it must have been an elephant seal. Such reports are also current in Southern Alaskan bays and inlets, and letters to Argosy (and to Ivan Sanderson personally) following the article on the Mylark echogram spoke of several sea monster sightings, some of which could have been of seacows.There are also both traditional Inuit "Upturned-boat" monsters supposedly living in Hudson's bay, and very old reports of "Mermaids" in that area recorded by the explorers searching for the Northwest Passage. Manatees are the traditional explanation for Mermaid sightings, but there are otherwise not supposed to be any manatees in the Arctic. A famous example of one such sighting was made in the Foxe Basin.Marine biologists Bret Weinstein and James Patton of the University of California have noted that there are vague reports of Steller’s Sea Cows from along the northwest coast of North America and the northeast coast of Asia, in the Arctic Ocean and Greenland. If such reports are not discounted, then Hydramalis [Rhytina] gigas, or a subspecies, may still be alive today.Great Lakes Whale, esp. South Bay Bessie: Typically 25-35 feet long and often a foot or two out of the water. Color brown, gray or frequently an olive-brown. two small dark eyes seen on the sides, a blowhole on top of the "Bottlenose" head is also described as a "Third eye" at least once.Teeth reduced and only at the front of the beak, and a peculiar arrangement of one tooth sticking out on top and two sticking up in front on the bottom jaw is recorded twice in separate incidents 150 years apart. Two fairly small pectoral flippers with "Arm-like" bony structure. Small fin on back, toward the tail end and often noticed, but characteristic of the type when it is noticed. Whale-like tail. Sometimes small pods of two to five animals will be seen following closely behind one another. Overall form when just the forepart is seen, and when the beak is hidden below water or otherwise missed, strikes several witnesses as looking like a large fat snake.Allowing for this much, other similar reports are also noted in the area with creatures trying to go upstream in smaller rivers, and this could include the Ottowa River in Canada and also around Toledo, Ohio, and into Wisconsin. The creature's name is an anglicization of the name for the Lake Superior Monster in Native lore, Misi-Bissie or Bichi-Bichi, and represented as a gigantic sturgeon (of probably whale size)

Popular Posts

In order to be fair and have more choices, there are now two Popular Posts lists: the first one is for the last 30 days and the second one is for all-time favorites. Some posts may appear on both lists temporarily.

Associated Sites

Disclaimer

In Accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, any copyright material on display here is under Fair Use without any claim of ownership or any profit accrued by the display. The Material herein is for non-profit educational or criticism puposes only. Notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 106 and 106a, the fair use of a copyrighted work including reproduction and distribution of said material as specified in that section, for purposes of education, news reporting, commentary or criticism, scholarship or research, to persons who have expressed a prior interest in receiving such material for such purposes, is NOT an infringement.